I sold my very first item on AMAZON!

My very first post on this blog was about the school I worked for for over 5 years closing and being laid off. Instead of looking at this situation in a negative light, I changed my mindset and looked into all the opportunities I now had available. I now had this new found freedom of not working a 40 hour work week! The two options I chose to delve into was starting this blog and selling on Amazon. You can read the post here https://adultingmama.com/adventures-in-scheming/

If you’ve been reading this blog, you will notice a common theme; parenting is hard and I love a good deal! Retail Arbitrage is the idea that you buy something at a low cost and resell it for a higher cost, making a profit from the resell. I’m always shopping clearance and decided to send in 4 of these items to Amazon in the beginning of May to see if they would sell. Well, I had my first sale last week! It took almost two months to sell something but I made my first sale and I am now $12 richer!

Is this something that I will continue to do?

I don’t know. I did some research on resell arbitrage and it looks like it’s a fading concept, with Amazon at least. Ebay is notorious for resell arbitrage but with Amazon FBA, fullfilled by Amazon, they give you the luxury of keeping your products in their warehouses and shipping the product for you! However, Amazon is getting stricter with their policies and the majority of people who started with retail arbitrage are moving towards private label.

What is private label?

Private label is when you buy in bulk from China, label the product with your brand and sell on Amazon. Sounds easy, right? Wrong! The product needs to be something that is generic and can be reproduced in China. It ideally needs to weigh less than 2 pounds and the dimensions less than a foot to be worth shipping. You also need to find a product with a high sales rank and not a lot of competition and you need to market it to make it work. I also spoke with some of the more successful Amazon sellers and most of them told me that the majority of their money for the first YEAR goes right back into the business. It’s a lot of work, time, and investment.

I’m not necessarily throwing in the towel just yet. I still have three other items for sale on Amazon. I might ship some other items too to feel out the market place. If something sells quickly and I can find a generic in China, then I might consider Private Label. But for now, I’ll celebrate my $12 sale!

Tell me about your business adventures? I would love to hear from you.